How Personalization is Taking Over Corporate Travel

Any company offering a corporate travel service is continuously striving to improve the traveler and manager experience. In response, these travel management companies (TMCs) are slowly becoming technology providers.

Unfortunately for TMCs, having complete insight in to traveler usage behavior is still a work in progress, but strides are being made to better customize travel and booking experiences. Here are a few things to know about personalization and corporate travel.

Travel Apps Making Personalized Travel Recommendations

Mezi is a messaging platform where travelers can make specific booking requests. Backed by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the app gathers relevant content and suggestions within the app in seconds. Taking it a step further, Mezi helps the traveler book their arrangements with the touch of a button.

Before Mezi, travel managers and travelers launched the airline website and found a flight that worked for their schedule and price range. Now, the same people can send a quick message to the app that does all the searching for them.

Not only does this make the user experience less manual, but it also ensures they’re getting optimal suggestions that may have been missed with previous search-and-book methods.

Airlines Are Personalizing the Corporate Travel Experience

For decades, airlines have gathered information on its passengers. Ranging from successful and failed experiences, airlines know who their passengers are, their birthdays, where they prefer to fly, when their flights are cancelled or delayed, when their seats are changed, and more. This industry has long dreamed of a day where they could put all that segregated data to good use. It might not be as far away as they once thought.

Delta has implemented software on their flight attendants’ in-flight devices to help them keep tabs on their passengers. Right on their device, a flight attendant can view a color-coded seating chart of the flight’s passengers. A seat with a green thumbs up tells the attendant to thank or congratulate the person, while a red check indicates an apology is needed for a previous mishap.

For example, a red check could mean a passenger’s flight was cancelled unexpectedly last week. A thumbs up could indicate the passenger recently hit a new SkyMiles milestone.

As is with all data aggregation, airlines must strike a delicate balance of how much data is too much. They don’t want the passenger to feel uncomfortable and spied on, but they also want their guests to feel taken care of on a personal level.

Fragmented Traveler Data Makes Personalization More Difficult

To improve traveler experience, TMCs need to know customer behavior while abroad. Travel managers should ask questions like: Are travelers having to pay for necessities out of pocket? What kind of challenges are they dealing with that we could better support? These “ancillary” transactions may seem like a part of the process for travelers, but if their TMC knows about them ahead of time, they can make personalized recommendations for their next trip.

However, with all of the miscellaneous purchases made, it has become more complex to understand just how much one spends during a corporate trip. More than ever before, the personalized content and resources provided to road warriors are taking on a new level of importance.

Partner with a Forward-Thinking Travel Management Company

Travel personalization is only going to improve as more data is gathered. It’s critical that you work with a TMC who has technology to support this shift. Adelman Travel’s travel assistant, Ava, is the artificial intelligence every travel manager needs. Get in touch with us today to see how Ava can make your next booking experience seamless and easier than ever.